5 August 2009

Many people do not know that back in Siddhartha Engg. College in Vijayawada I used to be kind of involved in lots of gang fights which were quite common in colleges during those days. I think primarily gang fights in colleges exist because of lack of interest in studies and wanting to seek excitement and adventure and also ofcourse an obsession towards power.

There was a very hot-headed guy called VT which our gang headed by me intended to beat up. Those days there was a tough Superintendent of Police heading Vijayawada called Vyas who was a terror. His reputation was that he will beat the crap out of any law breaker first and ask questions only later. So I came up with a plan that on the last day of the final exams as we finish and VT comes out we beat him up and we go off to our respective towns where we came from and in the 2 months holiday period things will cool off. That was my plan. But the problem was that one of our gang members Narsing had an exam which was deferred to the next day. I feared that he will be picked up by the Police after we beat up VT and leave. And we could not postpone beating VT to the next day as he was leaving for his town the same day. So as not to endanger Narsing I cancelled the operation.

Then I thought of an idea and I carefully leaked out information in a very subtle and strategic way that we are going to beat up VT on his final exam day. The news reached VT, which was intended, and he gathered a team of people to protect him as he came out of the exam hall. This was what I laid the bait for so as to know for sure who all are behind VT to support him. I got my guys to see who all were there who came to stand by VT. The attack didn’t happen so VT presumed that what he heard was a rumour and he went on his way to his town. Now I used the two months holiday period to study the people who came in support of VT, to who they are, who they belong to, their strengths and weakness etc and I neutralized most of them by, in some cases threatening them, and in some cases getting other forces to threaten them, befriending them etc, so that by the time VT came back from holidays his support was cut down a lot but unknown to him. But still his hot-headedness and his guts were a force and also SP Vyas was still there but necessity of beating up VT had to be addressed. So I came up with a plan to use VT’s ego and his short-temper as a weapon. I took the gang in college hours to cross a fence from the campus which leads into a residential colony where VT used to stay. This time too in the last minute I leaked out the information, so as to give him time to run off. VT ran out of his house as we were reaching. I quickly got my gang back into the campus.

Now I was counting on VT’s temper and ego that he was forced to run like a coward to do my job for me and soon enough VT rode into the campus on a scooter armed with a knife along with a guy from his gang and straight away lunged at me. A friend of mine Ravinder came in between and got stabbed. As we had our sticks and rods we beat up VT who ran and hid inside a room in the campus along with the bloodied knife as we stood guard outside. Meanwhile VT’s guy ran out of the campus. The Police came arrested VT and us too and put in two separate lock-ups at Patamata Police Station. I lied to the cops and gave the names of all VT’s supporters who refused to turn to my side when I was negotiating with them in the holidays that they were there along with VT at the time the attack took place. The fact that my friend Ravinder got stabbed and VT was caught red-handed with the bloodied knife turned the case totally in our favour, the Police believed my story. They put a case of attempt to murder on VT and arrested all the guys whose names I gave on charges of assault. So in one master stroke of thought I managed to finish the opposition gang.

We were released from the lock-up after our statements were recorded. VT’s parents came and pleaded with me to get Ravinder, to take his complaint back and co-operate with them which I did and VT was released on bail after through some contacts I met SP Vyas and told him some cock and bull stories to dilute the case and in subsequent happenings VT was let off.

But the point what I was wanting to make through the narration of this incident is that while I was in the lock-up, a conversation I over-heard through the bars, of a Police Sub-Inspector talking on the phone taught me one of the most important lessons of my life.

He was talking presumably to some friend of his on various casual things in which he mentioned passingly that “Some kids were quarreling at Siddhartha College so we just brought them in”. The incredibly bored tone in which he mentioned it suddenly brought into focus to me how small everything really is in the larger scheme of things. What we felt was of such importance to beat up VT and the months of planning we had done, Ravinder being in hospital with a stab wound, VT charged with attempt to murder, everything seemed so trivial seen from the point of view of the Sub-Inspector as he probably sees day in and day out much more serious cases whereas for us we created a world of us and VT, and for all practical purposes it was a world war for us.

As I thought about it I slowly started realizing in the lock-up that there is no fundamental difference in two kids at school fighting for a pencil, and India and Pakistan fighting for Kashmir. It’s just the arms and scales which differ. What happened to me and VT at college seems small to the Sub-Inspector at Patamata Police Station. What happens at Patamata Police Station will be small to SP Vyas who heads Vijayawada. What happens at Vijayawada will be small to the man who heads Andhra Pradesh. What happens at Andhra Pradesh is small compared to the man who heads India and what happens in India is trivial to the man who heads America… so on and so forth. As we keep cutting to different perspectives of people having different agendas and priorities, nothing will be truly important any more. So like it happened to Buddha under a tree, wisdom dawned upon me in the Police Station lock-up.

The second time I was in a lock-up was at Panjagutta Police Station in Hyderabad when there was a raid conducted on all video libraries on a complaint filed by A.Purnachandra Rao the Producer of “Aakhri Raasta”. 800 video cassettes from my shop were seized and I was put inside a lock-up.

The raid was to find if we had pirated versions of “Aakhri Raasta”. Mostly during those days pirated versions of new films used to have fictional labels on them. So the only way to find out for the Cops was to check all the 800 cassettes physically and this number was from my shop alone. So while they were doing that I was in the lock-up. The difference this time compared to Vijayawada was that my home folks came to know and the tension and humiliation for them was unbearable. As my cousins were trying to use some influence to get me out as fast as possible, I spent the night in the lock-up. It was not so much being inside for myself but the tension of the people outside is what which bothered me. Sometime in the midnight a pickpocket was brought into the Police Station and literally thrown into the lock-up where I was. He just calmly stretched himself, nodded at me, took off his shirt and using it as a pillow went to sleep in a corner of the lock-up as it were some luxurious bedroom. I just sat there the whole night and at one point of time after the Inspector went home, I saw all the Constables gather into one room and it took me a while to realize that they were watching some blue film which they got from the raid.

I dozed off and woke up to the pickpocket and a Constable sitting on the floor either side of the bars, having tea and chatting about their families. If you take out the bars separating them, they could be just two friends. This initially surprised me but later on I realized when the Inspector talking to me said, “These rich bastards namely the Producers cheat on the income-tax, earn lakhs and crores and they are after poor guys like me earning a few hundreds for our livelihood”. The human being in him connected to the necessity of mine than that of the legal righteousness of the Producer and from then on he went out of his way to help me out to get out of the case.

So no matter whether it’s a video pirate like me, the pickpocket with whom I shared the lock-up, the Producer Purnachandra Rao, the Constables watching the blue film, the Cop sharing his problems with the pickpocket and the Inspector who sided with me because of his hatred of the rich, they were all human beings at the end of the day irrespective of their uniforms, job responsibilities, statures etc. After I got out as I saw first hand how a Police Station operated as I was in there for 24 hours an interest developed in me and I became close to the Inspector who shared his various experiences with me both on his job and also on a human being level and many times he left me hang out at the Police Station to just study and observe the happenings here.

These experiences invariably grew my mind to understand the psychology of criminals and cops the result of which I in the later days could display in my films.

So the two times I was in the lock-up I would say have majorly contributed to my understanding of human psychology and peoples behavior patterns and as I already had a cinematic bent of mind it was inevitable that I could dramatically drive that understanding far more deeper through the use of film medium. More than the lessons in Civil Engineering I would say those lessons in the lock-up were what which truly gave me a degree.

P.S:

1. Many years later many of my old college mates came to a preview of SARKAR and one of them was VT. We both hugged each other and could not believe ourselves that we ever did what all we did to each other.

2. Since I left college I never met Ravinder the guy who took the stab wound for me.

3. SP Vyas was killed by Naxalites in Hyderabad as he was jogging in the parade ground.

4. A.Purnachandra Rao the Producer of “Aakhri Raasta” due to whom I was thrown into the lock-up produced the Hindi version of SHIVA with me.

Other articles by Ram Gopal Varma:
My reaction to reactions
The Psychological aspect of BGM

Note: Thanks to Ram Gopal Varma for giving us special permission to republish his blogs in idlebrain.com (visit rgvzoomin.com to visit Ram Gopal Varma's blog)